Free Killer's Cousin by Nancy Werlin Page B

mother.
    â€œSure, I can tell her,” I finally interrupted. “But maybe it would be better if you just called her yourself to make plans? I might not remember everything.”
    Julia opened her mouth again, but I cut her off with an ostentatious glance at my watch. “Gotta run,” I said, which was true. “See you later.” And I pounded on up the stairs, relieved that at least Lily had had nothing to say. She hadn’t actually said a word to me since our encounter over the rakes, and I was glad. It was odd, though. Lily’s personality, which I felt sostrongly when I was alone with her, seemed to disappear in the presence of her parents.
    I took the subway to Harvard Square and got to the museum ten minutes late. Raina was sitting on the steps outside, wearing clothes nearly identical to those she’d had on earlier in the week.
    â€œSorry,” I puffed. I followed Raina as she picked up a floor plan of the museum and then decisively led me into the first of several rooms containing medieval art. There were triptychs and icons and panels, mostly of saints and martyrs, all very colorful and rather flat in appearance. She stopped right in the center of the room. “I love this stuff,” she said. She nodded toward a triptych that was brilliant in reds and blues and golds, and we went closer.
    The center panel depicted a beautiful, skinny man bleeding luridly from the wounds of a dozen arrows. He was wearing a sheer white cloth around his loins, a lofty, almost silly expression, and a deep golden halo that sat behind and on top of his head like a paper circle. On the left and right panels a richly dressed man and a woman knelt in prayerful profile.
    â€œSt. Sebastian,” Raina said with satisfaction. “You can always tell by the arrows.” She gestured at the profiled couple. “Bet these folks commissioned the piece as insurance against plague. That’s Sebastian’s job.”
    â€œExcuse me?” I said.
    â€œThere’s a saint for everything,” explained Raina. “You can pray to St. Apollonia to cure a toothache, or to St. Blaise when you’ve got a sore throat.” She paused. “Maybe, today, people pray to St. Sebastian for protection against HIV.”
    I watched the side of her face. “You Catholic?” I asked.
    Raina shrugged. “No. I’m not anything.”
    I don’t know why I asked. But I did. “Do you believe in God?”
    Raina turned and looked me full in the eyes. “Yes. Absolutely.”
    I was surprised. Almost shocked. I don’t know why.
    Raina asked, “What about you?”
    â€œNo,” I said. My voice came out a little too loud for a museum. I lowered it. “I just don’t,” I said. Why had I brought this up? Thankfully, Raina did not pursue the subject.
    We moved from room to room together, casual. It was comfortable. I liked her. But whenever we were quiet, I kept thinking of Emily. It had been foolish to imagine, even for a moment, that I might not.

CHAPTER 15
    T hanksgiving morning. I opened one eye at a rustling in the kitchen, and then closed it quickly, turning over on the sofa to present my mother—should she look at me—with my back. Surreptitiously, I maneuvered my wrist into position and peeked at my watch. Six A . M .
    My sofa was not long enough to accommodate six-footers, and I had slept uneasily, too aware of my parents’ presence. They had arrived fairly late the night before, tired from the trip, and had tumbled almost immediately into bed in my room. Vic had offered me the pullout sofabed downstairs in their apartment, but the last thing I wanted was to wake up in the Shaughnessy living room. I didn’t want to be so near Lily. For the last couple of weeks, she’d been watching my arrivals and departures like a sharpshooter, making me very nervous as well as superconscious of the few times Raina treated me to tepid tea. I wondered if